[[quoteright:180:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gta_liberty_city_stories.jpg]]The first of the two [[GaidenGame "Stories" games]] in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, which were both made for the UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable and later ported to UsefulNotes/PlayStation2. The story takes place in 1998, a few years before the events of ''III'', and follows a younger, slimmer Toni Cipriani's rise to power in the Leone crime family. And it's not easy. Things get messy, with uncooperative mayors and families from the Old Country wanting in on the action.----!!Tropes of this game:* AccidentalMisnaming: As Salvatore warms to Toni, he starts calling him "Anthony" out of endearment. He never does get it right.* AffablyEvil: Massimo Torini and Salvatore's uncle. "It was {{nothing personal}}."* AllElectionsAreSeriousBusiness: The Mafia-rigged mayoral race.* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: O'Donovan supports compulsory buggery, hates America, and will sell your childrens' organs.** ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Who ate all the pies? O'Donovan!* AxCrazy: Salvatore Leone grows steadily more paranoid as the events of the game progress.** Toni himself is this in "Dead Meat". Literally, with a meat axe.* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler:Avery Carrington]].* BadHabits: The end of the Church missions, [[spoiler: where you find out that the "priest" you spoke to is actually a reporter for the local newspaper that desperately wanted stories to cover.]]* BattleInTheRain: A thunderstorm rolls in during the final lighthouse shootout.* BeardOfSorrow: [[spoiler: Donald Love has one after losing both the election and his empire.]]* BlatantLies: Mayor Donovan promises the ferries will continue running in [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII the future]].* BrokenBridge: At the start of the game, the bridge to Staunton Island is still under construction (and remains so for the entire game -- eventually, enough of the bridge is completed for you to drive across it), the drawbridge to Shoreside Vale is stuck in the "up" position (as it was in ''III''), and the ferry between the three islands is closed due to a strike.* BrooklynRage* TheCartel: The Colombian Cartel makes an appearance here, doing business with the Leones.* CallForward: Salvatore's safehouse is the future site of the Triad Fish market. The Triads clear the land by detonating the existing building.** Toni helps the Yakuza gain control of the casino, which is still mob-owned in this game.** Ray Machowski is still an honest cop at this point, for which his partner Leon gives him no small amount of grief.** Mayor Donovan assures us on the radio that his tunnel project [[BlatantLies won't put the ferry out of work]].** Donald Love 'acquires' Fort Staunton by blowing the existing neighborhood to bits.** In Phil Cassidy's cameo, he says that he does so much business by the ferry terminal that he should set up there permanently.* CementShoes* ChainsawGood: Taken even {{Up To Eleven}} when Toni gets ambushed by an army of chainsaw-wielding psychos sent in by [[spoiler:Vincenzo]], hence the ShoutOut mission name of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Portland Chainsaw Masquerade"]].* ClarkKenting: "Lionel", the lawyer who visits Salvatore in prison. (AKA Toni wearing glasses).* {{Confessional}}: The Church missions.* TheComicallySerious: Toni.* ConspiracyTheorist: Salvatore Leone. It seems that the only person he doesn't distrust is Toni, and even then, he holds him at gunpoint once. Given that the [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas last guy]] he trusted [[spoiler:betrayed him, robbed his casino and killed a dozen of his security guards on the way out...]]* CrapsackWorld: Liberty City. See below EvilVersusEvil.* DarkerAndEdgier: Somewhat. Mainly [[VideogameCrueltyPotential because the level of cruelty in the game is quite high]], even more than its predecessor. Several missions includes doing atrocious acts: bomb the area of a city (Fort Staunton), shoot up a university full of student activists(!), stealing corpses for Donald to munch on, dismember a man with an ax and then carrying his remains to his own butcher shop, etc. * DeadpanSnarker: Toni has his moments.* DenserAndWackier: Rockstar, what have you done with Donald Love? And who is this David Cross soundalike who eats human torsos on a silver platter?-->"[[TheJeeves Humphries!]] Bring out the offal!"* DistressedDude: Salvatore lands in more than his fair share of trouble, resulting in Toni constantly having to bail him out.** DistressedDamsel: Maria doesn't do much better in this regard - literally every mission for her is the same basic "Toni drives Maria to buy drugs, [[NotMyDriver the dealers are invariably linked to the Sindaccos]], Toni has to give chase without destroying their vehicle and save Maria".* TheDon: Salvatore Leone.* ElvisImpersonator: Toni himself, when wearing the "King" outfit that you win by completing the final mission. Although he doesn't imitate ElvisPresley as much as just dress like him.** Paulie Sindacco, one of Toni's more prominent enemies, is definitely this trope. * EvilVersusEvil: In case you have doubts, everybody (protagonists, antagonists or minors) is either a villain, [[JerkAss jerk]] or [[TheSociopath sociopath]]. Toni is a ruthless and somewhat insane mobster who does not hesitate to commit atrocities for their own benefit or to satisfy their bosses or even earn his Ma's respect, Salvatore is extremely vindictive and shows traits of paranoia and narcissism, and Donald is a corrupt cannibal.* FatBastard: J.D O'Toole.* {{Flanderization}}: Maria is really shrill and ditzy here.** Salvatore is a lot more paranoid here, to the point of waving a gun in Toni's face which can probably ascribed to Carl Johnson's betrayal years prior and the intense gang war in the city.** Donald Love is a lot more depraved here. His taste for human flesh was hinted at before, but here we actually ''see'' what he's eating.* {{Futureshadowing}}: This game runs on it. Perhaps most significantly, Salvatore's uncle mutters under his breath, "Every dog has day...", suggesting that the Leones' days are numbered. This indeed happens when Salvatore is later killed by Claude.* {{Gayngster}}: Kazuki Kasen, to hear his wife tell it.* GreaserDelinquents: The Sindacco Family, and also Dan Sucho from the mission "Greased Sucho"* GuideDangIt: Like most other GTA games, many of the side quests, hidden package pickups, etc. are not immediately apparent.* HeKnowsTooMuch: Ned Burner's ultimate fate.* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Donald Love wastes his massive fortune on the mayoral campaign, which ends up backfiring on him. When we meet him again he is sleeping in a bug-infested flophouse.** The Forellis have gone from the most powerful mafia family in Liberty City to minor crooks, especially after the destruction of Fort Staunton, the only neighborhood still owned by the family.** The Sindacco Family is about as big as the Leone family at the start of the game, despite the death of Johnny Sindacco in ''San Andreas'', and they, together with the Forellis almost took over Liberty City. By the end of the game, Paulie Sindacco is dead, the gang has lost all their influence, and Sindacco gang members don't even spawn anymore.* ImAHumanitarian: Clarification is given of what goes on at Donald Love's 'morgue parties'. See what we mean by weird?* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: Toni can't climb, and often needs a car to give him a boost. Considering that [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas the last GTA game averted this]], it's rather annoying. Especially since many of the hidden packages are in high places, requiring you to get creative with vehicles to get them. [[spoiler:One of them requires blowing up an entire section of the city.]]* {{Jerkass}}: Nearly everybody, including Toni himself sometimes, but especially his own mother, who constantly berates Toni for not being man enough or living up to his late father's reputation no matter what Toni does. This reaches its zenith when she calls a hit out on Toni, though eventually she calls it off once Toni gets made. And for other examples, J.D. O' Toole, Vincenzo Cilli and Paulie Sindacco.* KarmaHoudini: Toni Cipriani, oh boy. [[spoiler:Near end of game Toni blows up Fort Staunton to help with Love's land-grab, leading to the deaths of countless innocents. Most of the blame was put on the Forrelis for storing illegal weapons underground.]] * LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: Don't look at Toni, he's just "in the restaurant business."* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: Ned Burner manipulates Toni into commiting several high-profile heists and murders all in the name of 'exclusive' reports.* LighthousePoint: The final battle.* MafiaPrincess: Maria, smack right in the middle of it.* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Massimo Tori.* MayorPain: [[PunnyName R.C. Hole]].* MidlifeCrisisCar: At one point, Salvatore Leone shows off a "fully loaded, top of the line" sports car to Toni. Maria, riding shotgun, humorously responds by claiming to "smell" Salvatore's mid-life crisis. The car is later found wrecked not far from where Salvatore showed it off.* TheMissingno: Helicopters ''can'' be flown in LCS, they just aren't lying around. Through exhaustive effort, you can hijack one in midair during the "False Idols" mission. It can even be crammed into a garage.* MissionPackSequel: While the controls are different from those of ''GTA III'' (similar to ''San Andreas''), Liberty City is largely unchanged.* MobWar: The Leones vs. The World, basically. Every rival family in the city and even their Sicilian precursors are gunning for them.* MommasBoy: Toni, and he's [[WellDoneSonGuy constantly trying to get her approval.]]* NoodleIncident: Apparently the FBI searched J.D's hard drive for [[Squick something]]...* TheNineties: The game is set in 1998, and while the late 90's atmosphere isn't as blatant as Vice City's take on the 80's, there are a lot of shout outs to the late 90's such as CD's, [[MillenniumBug [=Y2K=]]], and the early days of the Internet.* NothingPersonal: Massimo Torini's last line. Salvatore [[ItsPersonal disagrees]].* TheOldCountry: The Sicilian mafia.* OutrunTheFireball: After detonating the bombs underneath Fort Staunton, Toni's van speeds out of an exploding subway entrance.* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Toni and Toshiko uses the Forelli family's views regarding mixed-race interactions to stage an ambush.** The primary reason J.D defected to the Leones was the Sindacco family's refusal to have him made due to his mixed Irish-Italian heritage.* PlayingBothSides: It's made clear early on that Massimo Torini is uniting the city's small-time gangs against the Leones.* {{Prequel}}: To ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII''.* RagsToRiches: [[spoiler:Donald]]'s (albeit temporary) fate after going bankrupt.* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: The mission "Hot Wheels" has Toni, having just evaded a police trap that Vincenzo ''conveniently'' forgot to tell him about, hit Vincenzo with a small but effective one of these while the latter rants about how, since he set Toni up with a safehouse and all that, he oughta be "grateful" to the stuck-up prick. Said speech also has a dash of BadassBoast about it. -->'''Toni:''' Oh yeah, I understand, Vinnie! I understand that as long as I work for you, I'm gonna get treated like a bitch! Well, I was taking scores while you were still looking up girls' skirts! Have your bitch job back, ''boss''! I quit!* RecycledInSpace: The mission "Karmageddon" (the one given by [[spoiler:Ned Burner]], not the side-mission you can do after that) is similar with ''Vice City'''s "Messing with the Man", except WITH A FIRETRUCK! Yeah, your main objective is to cause mayhem around the city and fulfill the "rating" meter by committing as many crimes as possible while behind the wheel of a firetruck, drivign crazy enough to complete the mission. Both are also done for petty reasons: while "Messing with the Man" is done ForTheEvulz, "Karmageddon" is done for GoingForTheBigScoop.* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: [[spoiler:J.D.]]* [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen She Who Must Not Be Seen]]: Ma Capriani.* SleazyPolitician: They don't call him [[PunnyName R.C. Hole]] because he's a great communicator.** Miles O'Donovan, the new mayor is a puppet of the Forellis and is apparently no stranger to scandals.* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: [[spoiler:Avery Carrington, poor old guy.]]* SuicideIsPainless: [[spoiler: Toshiko Kasen]].* SurroundedByIdiots: Early on Vincenzo asks why he's surrounded by idiots. Toni says "I don't know. Birds of a feather?" Naturally, Cilli is not amused.* UnwittingPawn: Toni being tricked into creating news stories for Ned Burner to 'scoop'.* VillainProtagonist: Toni and Salvatore. * WhyDontYouJustShootHim: The game provides you with a katana during the final duel with Kazuki, but you can use the quicker and more effective method of just shooting him and the mooks.* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Luigi Goterelli, the Leone pimp is nowhere to be seen this time around.** Salvatore's son Joey is barely mentioned, although it appears that he already owns the auto shop.----